Are cable recommendations worth anything?

@raysmtb1

’Months ago I read an article about 2 scientists did a double blind study testing an expensive cable vs a coat hanger. The coat hanger won. That’s where I’m at with cables.’


Me too. For years I tried different cables, copper, silver plated, twin and earth solid core even, thick, thin, but none of them could perform the desired conjuring trick some reviewers had suggested.

Those who don’t like even the simplest blind a/b test (let alone the double blind!) might need to ask themselves what accursed sorcery occurs to highly acclaimed cables as soon as the lights are switched off.

Do they turn into coat hangers in the dark?

@douglas_schroeder mentioned that manufacturers recommendations might be worth noting. This is how I was led into first using the Linn K20 and then the extremely unwieldy Naim NAC A4.

Apparently Naim amplifiers needed special cable with high impedance to work really well. Apparently.

Or maybe once Naim fell out with Linn
(after the Scottish blagards began to encroach upon the exclusive territory of those game boys from Salisbury by shock horror, releasing their own amps) Naim thought we’ll have some of that cable action if you don’t mind.

In any case I don’t know if Naim are still insisting that users of their amps MUST use Naim cables, but I have noticed that the successor to the A4, the cleverly titled A5, just happens to be far more conventional in appearance and thus user friendly.

@audio2design,

'It will of course be noted that "Audio Reviewers" did poorly. Retail audio sales, better, but not great. Selected and trained did by far the best. Selected mainly by good hearing (which I suspect many here no longer have), and trained to listen for specific defects for loudspeakers.'



This could be a major problem with all of our opinions, learned and experienced as they might be. Just how good is our hearing? Can you imagine how skewed our impressions might be if we were to have one or two dips at various frequencies?

Perhaps it's high time someone put out a comprehensive online listening test measuring both our ability to hear not only comparitive loudness but different frequencies. 

I mean where would it leave the opinions of someone whose hearing becomes irregular above 8kHz? You'd think it would be mandatory for reviewers (and anyone working in pro audio) to have thorough hearing tests, but apparently it is not.

Floyd Toole's work might not get us all to the audio promised land, but nevertheless it remains a valuable map for anyone attempting to navigate their way to sonic excellence.

It's not really too surprising that in addition to the importance of a flat on-axis performance and smooth off axis performance, listeners also gave bass a 30% weighting when assessing overall performance, is it?